Amusement game devices, such as pinball machines, are well known in the art. By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,797,600, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, illustrates and describes an amusement game device of the type having a cabinet which houses a playfield where the playfield includes various types of targets that are intended to be interacted with by a ball to achieve one or more game objectives. For storing the balls that are to be used during game play, the cabinet is typically provided with a main ball trough and a ball is launched out of the main ball trough by a solenoid into a ball launching alley or chute to a ball launching position where the ball will be in front of a ball launching device. As still further illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,797,600, when the ball is placed into the ball launching position adjacent to the ball launching device, the ball rests in a machined groove in the playfield, which is generally referred to in the art as a “shooter groove.” The shooter groove centers the ball in a position to allow the ball launching device to impart a force onto the ball that is sufficient to put the ball into play upon the playfield, i.e., a force that is sufficient to cause the ball to be exited from the ball launching alley.
In operation, the shooter grove is intended to guide the ball smoothly as it moves thru the ball launching alley and onto the playfield. However, it has been seen that repeated launches of the ball can result in the shooter groove becoming damaged. Specifically, it has been seen that the protective hardcoat that is typically provided to the surface of the playfield becomes damaged at the point(s) where the ball impacts the edges of the shooter groove as the ball is being directed towards the playfield. When the protective hardcoat is damaged in this manner, the integrity of the playfield surface is compromised and a costly repair of the damaged area and/or a replacement of the entire playfield are the only known solutions to correct this problem.